Development
Origins and conception Glen Keane, the film's original director, first began working on the story for what became Tangled about 14 years prior to its release, then directed the film's development from 2002 to 2008. In October 2003, the film was announced as Rapunzel Unbraided, as a computer animated feature scheduled for a 2007 releaseKeane described as "a Shrek-like version of the film"that revolved around an entirely different concept. Keane said of the ↵original plot, "It was a fun, wonderful, witty version and we had a couple of great writers. But in my heart of hearts I believed there wassomething much more sincere and genuine to get out of the story, so we set it aside and went back to the roots of the original fairy tale." In November 2005, Unbraided was pushed back to a summer 2009 release in order to give Keane "more time to work on the story." According to Ed Catmull, at one point Michael Eisner himself had proposed using modern-day San Francisco as the initial setting at the start of the film and then somehow ↵transporting the heroine into a fairy tale world, but Keane could not make that idea work. The film was shut down about a week before Catmull and John Lasseter were placed in charge of the studio in January 2006, and one of their first decisions was to restart the project and ask Keane to keep going ↵with the filmIt had originally been announced in April 2007 that Annie-nominated animator and story artist Dean Wellins would be co-directing the film alongside Glen Keane.[n October 9, 2008, it was reported that Keane and Wellins had stepped ↵down as directors due to other commitments, and were replaced by the ↵team of Byron Howard and Nathan Greno, director and storyboard director, respectively, of Disney's 2008 animated feature Bolt.Keane stayed on as an executive producer and animation supervisor, while Wellins moved on to developing other short and feature films. After the film's release, Keane revealed that he had "stepped back"from the role of director because of a heart attack in 2008. Writing and character development Whenasked about the character of Rapunzel, Mandy Moore said that Rapunzel was a relatable character and called her a "Renaissance, bohemian" woman rather than a typical Disney princess:Moore said "[Rapunzel doesn't know she's a princess the end of the film. She's just really sort of motivated to find out what else is ↵out there beyond this crazy tower she's lived in for 18 years," and that"she's very independent, she can take care of herself, and she's ↵definitely come up with really entertaining ways to keep herself busy." Moore also stated that she herself had little influence on Rapunzel: The character was developed way before I had anything to do with it.According to Greno, one of the most difficult problems during thedevelopment of the film's plot was how to get Rapunzel out of the tower ↵without immediately ending the movie, in that she had thereby escapedMother Gothel and did not have any other specific objectives to pursue. At a meeting one day, animator John Ripa floated an idea which turned ↵out to be the solution they had been looking for: the mysterious floating lanterns